Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor arrived at a Washington, D.C., speaking engagement Wednesday in a wheelchair, and she walked to the podium on crutches. O’Connor, 77, did not tell the audience the reason, shrugging it off with a laugh as a “temporary deficiency, I trust.” But she told attendees beforehand that her hip gave her trouble during a recent overseas trip, and she had an MRI that morning to diagnose the problem.
O’Connor, who retired in January 2006, was the keynote speaker at a Law Library of Congress conference on the impact of Strickland v. Washington, the 1984 ruling that established standards for assessing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in criminal cases.
